


Broken Down Angel

by KittyAug, KittyAugust (KittyAug)



Series: Of Hunters and Hellblazers [16]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dean Teaches Castiel About Sex, Destiel - Freeform, Episode: s09e06 Heaven Can't Wait, Fanfiction Gap, Hand Jobs, M/M, Rexford
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-18
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2018-04-04 22:32:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4155468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittyAug/pseuds/KittyAug, https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittyAug/pseuds/KittyAugust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Rexford, Indiana:</b> After a close encounter with a confused angel of euthanasia, Dean teaches a fallen and still struggling Cas a thing or two about humanity, but maybe misses his own lesson.</p><hr/><p>This story is part of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/187280">Hunters & Hellblazers</a> but can be read as a stand alone 9.06 (Heaven Can't Wait) Fan-fiction Gap one-shot if you prefer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Down Angel

**Author's Note:**

> _Broken Down Angel_ is a Nazareth song - if you’ve read [H&H](http://archiveofourown.org/series/187280) you’ll know why that’s meaningful. And if you haven’t that’s cool too - the fic will still make sense. 
> 
> This story occurs in the [Hunters & Hellblazers](http://archiveofourown.org/series/187280) ‘verse but can be read stand alone.
> 
> Beta'd by the ever wonderful WTINP, thank you hun!
> 
>  **Edit:** This is the scene referenced during Dr. Sexy: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQZC7sNwbUk>

“So, where to Cas?” Dean’s voice is gravel rough, like the roads he was raised on, and strained at its edge. Cas can’t tell where that strain comes from anymore. Can’t look at Dean and see the swirling layers of his soul in motion. But he can still hear it despite the limitations of purely human ears.

Home. Cas wants to say home with a heartsick certainty. But he doesn’t have one and he isn’t welcome in Dean’s. So he gets in the car to buy time.

“The store, I suppose,” Cas says once they’re both in the Impala. That is the best answer he has. He looks at Dean for a moment longer than he should, can’t see it but he can imagine the hot green flare of a reaction the next remark would cause. He looks away, out the window and into the first moments of broken night around them. He watches the dark trees and watery evening light instead of Dean. Even if he can’t read the man’s soul he doesn’t really want to see the reaction on his face either. “I don’t have anywhere else to go, Dean.”

He shouldn’t have said that, really. It didn’t need saying. But if he’s going to live out the rest of this existence in human form he might as well get used to being petty.

“I…” Dean can’t say it. That’s okay. “Shit man, we should’a got you a better social or something, I… didn’t even think… I’m…” he draws in breath.

Cas knows Dean can’t finish that sentence. Knows Dean _shouldn’t_ finish that sentence. If Cas doesn't say something soon Dean will tie himself into a knot. Might try to make apologies that he doesn’t owe. Try to say and not say so many things at once, that he’ll stumble and hurt. Or get angry. Or something equally exhausting. Cas takes pity on himself as much as Dean and ‘interrupts’ into the unfinished silence.

“I can look after myself, Dean. I have been. Being human is tedious and dangerous and…” Lonely. He knows better than to say the last aloud. “I was created to fight demons and lead angels, Dean. I have existed for eons before you or your brother were conceived. I can continue to exist in slightly altered circumstances.”

Cas looks back from the window at last. Dean is staring at him. Dean does that. Cas examines him in return. Barely a sign of all that gold and green and righteous glory. He can see no more of Dean’s soul than any human. Can’t help looking for it though. Sadly. It is a sadness, of a kind, that emotion in the back of his throat. Cas has had emotions for years but they’re worse this time. Stronger and more physically felt. Not even a trace of grace to hold them in check. It has been more difficult this time. But...

“I’m fine Dean.” Or, he will be, but that part he doesn’t add. That isn’t how this works.

“Right,” Dean says and pulls the car out into the road. Even Cas, who has become somewhat of an expert in the complexities of Dean Winchester, cannot read his tone. He has apparently decided where they’re going. Cas is pretty sure it isn’t the store.

They drive in silence for some time.

Cas still isn’t sure what Dean really wants. It is so much harder when he can’t see the flares of his soul, can’t feel the pull and burn of his desires and thoughts on the edge of awareness. He understands why Dean sent him away. He knows he was, is, a danger to Sam and to Dean too (not that Dean would be factored into Dean’s decision making). And he’d hurt Sam. It wasn’t forgivable. _He_ wasn’t forgivable. Not to Dean. So he understood why having him in their home was untenable. He really did. And he didn’t resent the fact. But this, now, it was confusing. It seemed like Dean didn’t really want to leave. Like he was trying to make something better somehow. Making up for something. When there was nothing to be made better - no possible way even if there was. It throws Cas off kilter even further than Dean’s arrival has.

Cas considers Dean and wonders if Dean will ever make sense to him. Considers if he wants him to. He tries to let the silence into his mind the way he could as an angel. The engine purrs, the wind flows, Dean breathes, so does Cas… It almost works-

“So, Steve, huh?” Dean asks, finally following up his glancing looks with words.

“It is the name you gave me, Dean. Steven Tyler, it is on the I.D.”

“Oh… yeah, right.”

He still doesn’t think of himself as Steve. He’s not even sure if he should try. Names are such powerful things.

He’s not even certain when he started thinking of himself as Cas. About the same time he started thinking of _himself_ at all, probably. About the same time he started to doubt Heaven and trust the Righteous Man. Castiel the obedient angel was subsumed by Cas the renegade, as bad as Prometheus and perhaps to be punished like him too.

It was somewhere in the early days of the apocalypse, Cas thinks. That seems fitting. The word for apocalypse in Enochian, translated roughly, means ‘the complete end of the world as we know it’. Some days Cas thinks his apocalypse just came early. With Dean Winchester as the devil, the horsemen, all the angel flights, Christ and Antichrist, all in one. Dean named him and changed him. Changed his world with a few words. He’s still not sure why or how that matters, but it does. He’s also not sure if it’s a good thing. But it is true thing. And he has so few true things left to hold on to. So he holds on to his name while wearing another. Both given to him by this strange contradiction of a man. Most days it is enough. It has to be.

The car has stopped. Dean is staring at him again. Dean does do that. He thinks maybe he missed it. Missed being looked at, looked for, at all.

“I…” Dean fumbles his words. So confident when his life is in a monster’s hands, so lost when it’s in his own. Cas waits. “You hungry?”

It wasn’t the sentence he started but it’s the one he finishes. Cas feels himself frown. “A little,” he says. Still not sure what’s going on but not really wanting to push Dean away either.

“Right, good. Wait here.”

Dean is up and out of the car before Cas can respond to that. Where else would he go?

~*O*~

Shit. Shit, shit, _shit_. Dean has no idea what he’s doing. He’s pacing. That isn’t good.

Obviously it made perfect sense to drive Cas to his cheap motel and pay the room up for the rest of the month. Cas’d have to move on about then anyway - fake social security numbers have that effect on your life. Shit. Dean really should have got him a better fake, one in the system that would work for more than a month or two of income tax, a dead person or something. Something that would stand up to more than a cursory inspection. He just hadn’t thought about it. Hadn’t even thought Cas might get a job or an apartment or... Hadn’t thought about any of it. And now Cas is out here on his own, all soft and human… and sad and lonely enough that one of his brothers thought he’d be better off dead. Goddamn it. Dean’s an idiot-

“I am not sure this is necessary, Dean,” Cas is saying. Cas is talking to him. He should probably respond.

“Yes it’s goddamn necessary, Cas,” Dean snaps back. “You want to act like a human then you gotta live like a person, got it.”

Cas looks at him for a long broken second. “Alright.”

“Good,” Dean says it like he believes Cas actually agreed with him. It’s easier. “Now eat your burger and watch Dr. Sexy like a normal human.”

“Yes Dean,” Cas says, dry as bone. He raises an eyebrow and smiles at Dean before settling on the couch. Sarcastic little shit. Dean can’t help smiling back anyway. It’s that or admit what that eyebrow raising thing does to him. Smiling is a whole lot safer.

He’ll deal with the whole only one bed crisis later. Probably.

~*O*~

Cas likes television on principle. He likes it because he likes information. He wants to understand contemporary human interactions. Not just mimic them - really understand them. He doesn’t just want to ‘act like a human’ - he is human after all, now. He wants to be a good human.

The funny thing is that he was actually good at this once. Good at playing a man not an angel. All because he was good at observation, good at watching how people did things and extrapolating from there to create his own behaviours. But that had been such a long time ago. The Righteous Man had been a long haired, dark skinned Jew. Gabriel had still been an angel. Paul had generally been remarked to be the nicest looking apostle and Castiel had understood the jokes that came from that agreement. Cas had been good at it when it was an act. But now it was real. Now it really mattered to him he’d lost the knack, and almost lost Dean in the process.

Dean is laughing, enjoying the show. And that’s the part Cas still doesn’t really understand. Doesn’t ‘get it’ as Dean would say. It isn’t that he misses the point. He understands how and why stories work. He understands the desire for diversion. He just can’t connect with the characters, finds it difficult to feel for them. Maybe it is the remnants of Heaven in him, a residual callousness that is difficult to overcome. To an angel, all human stories end in Heaven or Hell and that’s all that matters.

But Dean loves television. Loves stories. Gets lost in them. And if he has to, Cas can get a little lost in Dean instead. He doesn’t. He doesn’t have to and he doesn’t let himself. He focuses on the television show. Tries to understand why the red haired nurse, Betsy, is fighting with the dark haired nurse, Claudia maybe? Dean has already explained the feud twice so Cas doesn’t ask again. It has something to do with Doctor Sexy and his affections and someone else called Price. Cas probably could figure it out, but tied into his human form like he was now, it was so much harder to think about more than two or three things at once.

It is even harder with Dean so close. Dean takes up so much space, physically, emotionally, spiritually. Cas has never been able to stop looking and it has only got worse since his latest fall. Some things are more apparent now, which had been a surprise. It had surprised him the first time and it surprised him this time too. Angels are so used to thinking of humans as limited, it was easy to forget that limitation can become focus. Block out all those other senses, it leaves so much more time and understanding for the remaining six (your average human has more like 18 base senses but when he tried to explain that to Dean he’d been highly unimpressed). He may not be able to intuit the location of every living thing in a building but he’s more aware of the one actually next to him. He can’t hear a prayer, can’t see Dean’s soul but he can smell his aftershave without even thinking about it. It is unfamiliar but not unpleasant. Not in this moment anyway.

Cas looks at Dean instead of the television. He watches the colors. The blue and green light from the TV set flickering across Dean’s face, the orange glow from the streetlight outside reflected back into the room and glancing off Dean’s hair. It might not be soul lit but it has its own beauty. As an angel he had seen so many spectra of light, it had been hard to understand the subtleties within the one humans see. He hadn’t realised that the color in those confusing half dreamt prayers he sometimes got from Dean had been the color of Jimm- of Castiel’s eyes. He thinks maybe he can understand that now. If he chooses to.

“Cas,” Dean snaps at him when he glances over. “You gotta quit the staring thing, man. Especially with dudes. It’ll give people the wrong idea.”

Cas narrows his eyes. He might not be a master of body language and subtle communication like Anael, Gabriel and Camael had been but he’s got a good grasp on this particular expression. Dean shifts uncomfortably under Cas’ considering gaze. Cas keeps watching him, he probably shouldn’t but he does. Watches him shift again and his skin flushes slightly.

Dean gives up after a few long heartbeats of silence and shoves himself off the couch with a sighing huff. He returns with two bottles of beer from the little fridge on the far side of the room. He hands one to Cas and glares at him until he takes it. He still hasn’t sat down again which means Cas has to look up at him. It should possibly be intimidating but it isn’t. Dean just seems to be considering something. Tapping his fingers along the wooden frame of the couch, almost biting his lip, and watching Cas nearly as carefully as Cas watches Dean. Cas waits.

Dean must decide or give up, because he sits down again. Maybe a little more roughly than necessary, but that is not unusual in itself. Dean interacts with the whole world like it is about to attack him or has personally wronged him in some form - which considering the life he has lived is far from unfounded. Cas does notice that Dean is further away than he was before. It is a small sofa, not really designed for this, not really designed much at all. Even with a few extra inches of distance Dean’s fingertips almost touch Cas’ neck where they rest across the back.

“Watch the show,” Dean says, eyes now firmly on the screen.

“The show is not currently showing, Dean. I thought you told me not to watch the advertisements?”

Dean hears the jest in Cas’ tone and smiles. Still doesn’t look over again but smiles. It’s enough. It usually is.

Sometimes Cas does miss the ultraviolet spectrum. Misses the way it makes glass shine and human skin glow. Times like this when Dean takes a sip from the glass bottle and Cas’ attention gets caught on the movement of his throat, follows the liquid on its way down.

“Quit it, Cas,” Dean says without even looking to check if he’s still staring. So Cas looks back at the screen as the story starts up again. Dr. Sexy is interviewing a patient, what Dean calls the MMotW, Medical Mystery of the Week.

For some inexplicable human reason, not looking at Dean just makes Cas more aware of his presence. He can hear him breathe, feel him move, feel the heat of a- _another_ human this close to his own human form. He still doesn’t really understand what Dean hopes to achieve here. But he knows the routine of it - understands Dean’s post-hunt nerves and the ways he deals with them. So it isn’t that making his skin feel wrong. He is so embedded in this body, locked into it now, yet here it is feeling like still doesn’t fit right. It doesn’t make sense - which is frustrating. It reminds him oddly of hunger but embedded in his skin. He thinks about asking Dean but knows that ‘body’ questions make the hunter awkward and uncomfortable. They make him shift and move and pace, make him gruff and anxious. Those are not things Cas likes to cause so he holds his tongue between his teeth and his voice locked behind them.

“Dude looks a bit like you, Cas.” Dean’s voice draws Cas’ attention back into the moment and out of the curiosities of his own mortal flesh. “Wonder if the actor’s related to Jimmy?”

“Hmm?” Cas says, tries to focus on the screen. Yes the actor is somewhat familiar, similar jawline, same physical colouring, the nose is similar but not the same. “Technically all humans are related,” Cas says, for something to say.

“Yeah well, you know what I mean. He- holy shit.”

The actor on the screen had been talking about his apparent ‘medical issue’ which, unsurprisingly considering the themes of the show, seemed to be to do with his penis. He was now demonstrating what appeared to be a complex feat of flexibility.

Dean coughs, almost chokes on his drink. “You can’t do that can you, Cas?” Dean asks, eyes still on the screen and cheeks slightly darker than normal.

“No,” Cas says simply. “I could have as an angel, obviously. But as a human I fear I would risk permanent spinal damage.”

“Oh, right…” Dean rubs at his face, drags his palm past his eyes and then across his stubbled jaw. It is a very Dean, very nervous gesture. Maybe Cas isn’t the only one who is physically uncomfortable. The room does seem more stuffy than it had earlier.

Cas examines the scene on the screen. Sometimes Dean becomes agitated if he watches certain things but this doesn’t seem to fit that category. It is a different form of agitation. A different kind of edge. And the show isn’t anything like Hell. It is torture, and fire, and viscera that causes the former kind of agitation. Causes Dean to get twitchy and maybe even leave the room. And this is not that, not that kind of scene and not that kind of discomfort. Cas looks back to Dean, despite earlier admonishments.

“Does this scene discomfort you?” Cas asks, genuinely curious.

“Something like that,” Dean says with far more honesty than Cas had expected.

It is one of those odd times where their eyes lock. It is like Dean can’t help it, doesn’t really want to look but won’t look away either. A soft tension in the room that makes Cas’ human skin shiver. For a second, Cas thinks Dean is about to move, but it’s aborted at the last moment, Dean takes a breath then snaps out of it. Almost as quickly as it happened Dean is looking away, looking back at the screen and away from Cas.

The tension remains. Cas curls his legs under him, it shifts them closer on the sofa but he has never been able to work out Dean’s rules about contact and ‘personal space’ so he does it anyway. If Dean has a problem with it Cas will soon know. He doesn’t seem to mind - if anything he shifts marginally closer, back to their original distance at the most. His hand rests so close to the back of Cas’ neck that they would be touching if Cas leaned back further. He doesn’t - but he could.

~*O*~

The problem arises later.

The program finishes and another starts, something about police or criminals or something. There is a complicated crime which has to be solved (or possibly committed) - that much Castiel has understood. Dean is still interested in the story but he also gets up and gets his gun out to clean it while he watches. His excuse is that they finished eating but Cas suspects it has more to do with not minding if he misses parts of the crime story as much as he would have with the medical drama. Cas knows enough about Dean that he does not express that opinion aloud.

Dean’s leg knocks against him now and then as he moves. And he’s closer in general, moved into the dented section of the couch that much closer to Cas himself. Warm and present in a way that is both familiar and totally foreign in his now limited form.

Cas feels the prickling heat in his flesh intensify and he watches Dean. He knows the moment that the erection starts. He might not be aware of his heart or able to tell his liver when and how to function anymore but this particular function has become bitterly known. The sensitivity and discomfort that comes with it is forefront of his mind whether he likes it or not.

He remembers that this sort of thing makes Dean uncomfortable. He shifts slightly, but not enough to draw attention. He could move, hide the evidence but that would mean losing Dean’s physical warmth against him. And he knows how happy Dean is to express his opinion if Cas is being inappropriate. So he ignores the event and assumes Dean will do the same. He contemplates the complexities of human bodies for a moment before returning to his observation of the hunter next to him instead.

~*O*~

Fuck. Dean noticed it immediately. Of freaking course he did. The sex scene in the show wasn’t even that hot - but Cas is pretty much a billion your-old teenager who just found out what sex is a few months ago. So maybe he should have expected it. But he didn’t and he wasn’t prepared. And now he’s got to do or say something because it hasn’t gone away despite Dean Winchester levels of denial and… well.

Dean stands up, Cas watches him pace a bit.

“Cas, I am not sharing a bed with you like… _that_ , man.” Dean very carefully does not look at the that in question. He gestures to the bathroom a bit more forcefully than he intended. “Just go, deal with it so we can both get a good six hours, okay?”

Cas blinks up at him. He has that little crease between the brows thing going on. Like he’s trying to solve the puzzle that are Dean’s words. Like they can never quite talk about the same thing, like everything he says is in code. And maybe it is. God, of course it is.

“I don’t understand,” Cas says. He frowns up at Dean and even moves subtly closer - still so openly and honestly curious that it makes him hurt.

“I… you… what?” Dean says, or maybe argues. He crosses his arms across his aching chest.

“I don’t understand what you want me to do about it,” Cas says simply. Dean can hear the edge of heavenly frustration in his tone though. And Dean isn’t sure he can deal with that. The hint of a growl, the question itself, on top of the whole angelic autofelation conversation earlier… it’s just a little too far.

“You have got to be kidding?”

Cas shakes his head. Still trying to puzzle it all out but missing so many crucial pieces that he’ll never manage it. Dean’s swallowed the corners and he’s not giving them back - not even when he’s confronted with desperately human blue eyes and a confused frown. Nope. Not going to happen.

“You’re really telling me you’ve never… you don’t know how-” Dean sighs. He would pray for strength if he didn’t know who would be listening in. “But you’ve had sex.” Dean hears the edge of panic in his own voice, at least it isn’t a sob.

Cas must hear it too because the frown deepens and there’s distress on the edge of that strong gaze.

~*O*~

Cas has observed mankind since they were first turned from the Garden. He has a perfectly good idea about what Dean is trying to tell him to do. He hasn’t tried it but he can guess.

Cas knows he is walking a morally dubious edge - not an outright lie but close. He remembers a late night conversation with Dean, so long ago, he didn’t understand why the hunter had misrepresented himself to the young woman in the bar. The one he went away with for a while and came back grinning so much liquid warm beauty that it felt like flight.

Dean had argued that they lie all the time, why was this any different. Cas hadn’t been able to find the right words to express his disapproval. ‘ _You’re afraid she wouldn’t have gone out back with me if she knew who I really was_ ’ Dean had said, _‘well I got news for you buddy, no one who knows what I am wants anything to do with me._ ’ Even all the way back then, Cas had known that wasn’t true. Despite those words, Dean’s lies had toned down after that. He only ever lied about the details from then on - the essence of truth hidden in his words.

So, yes Cas knows he’s toying at the edge of a dangerous game. But the human part of Cas is so curious he can’t really help it (he tells himself it is the humanity, like hunger, and thirst, and that constant lonely ache in his gut, or the tingling in his skin). He wants to see how far he can push this. See if he can get Dean to talk. To say aloud the thing he doesn’t even realise he prays in his mind at night. Just a little push…

Castiel lets his frown deepen. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything?” he says and allows his frustration to enter his voice, just a little. It’s not even a lie, not outright. And even if it was, wasn’t it Dean who told him that if humans really want something, they lie?

~*O*~

“You don’t…” Dean trails off again. This, Dean realises, in one moment of horrible clarity, is like some utterly perverted, incredibly uncomfortable real life version of one of his more illicit fantasies. It is a whole hell of a lot less sexy in a dingy hotel room with most of the beer gone and his earlier buzz quickly cooling in the face of it all.

Fuck. He really needs another drink. He stomps over to his bag where it spills half unpacked over the weird little folding case rack thing that he normally associates with fancier places. He rummages through it. Tries not to think about what he’s really considering. Jackpot, half left in a fifth of rotgut whiskey that’s better as an accelerant then consumption. Even Dean mostly used it for cleaning wounds. Desperate times.

He hears Cas huff in exasperation, and Dean doesn’t know who it is directed at but feels it in his bones anyway. Dean takes a drink straight out of the bottle and tries to suppress his wince when it burns all the way down and stings on his tongue.

Dean keeps his back turned. If he looks at Cas right now he’ll break. It’s been too long, too hard and too far to lose it now.

“Look, it’s just part of being human, Cas. It just… happens.”

“I’m aware,” Cas says, dry and a little sharp. Dean wishes that damn voice didn’t have the effect it does. His branded shoulder twinges when he thinks about it. Bitten in deep.

Dean forces himself to turn back around because he’s an idiot and apparently even more of a masochist than he thought.

“Well, when is does you just gotta, _handle_ it, dude.” Dean gestures but it is vague and even he knows it’s totally unhelpful.

Cas gives him a look that can only be described as disbelieving. There’s even a spark of challenge in his eyes, a tiny trace of angelic might. And there’s something about that which makes Dean want to rebel or maybe submit, to fight back and surrender. He has the gnawing urge to prove something and he isn’t even sure what or why.

Dean takes another slug of the whiskey before putting the bottle down. Cas is still looking up at him, eyes bright blue and a little dangerous but ultimately full of trust. He’s waiting for Dean to explain himself, bleed open and make humanity make fucking sense. Dean knows himself well enough to know that it’s the danger, the threat, in there as much as the honest faith that stirs something in his chest. There’s an old familiar desire sparking under his skin. Dean knows it’s crazy but once he’s made the decision there’s no backing out.

“Fine,” Dean says with what he hopes is a nonchalant single shouldered shrug. “I’ll show you.” Dean laughs at himself, “Just don’t tell Sam.”

Cas’ eyes go wide but he nods, once a sharp little inclination of his head. It’ll have to be enough.

Dean moves fast and firm before he can lose his nerve, breath already a little too shallow. He shoves himself off the rack and back to fully standing, holds a hand out to Cas and hopes he isn’t shaking. The former-angel’s eyes still glitter with confusion but he gives Dean his hand anyway. He lets Dean pull him to his feet and tug him towards the bed. His mouth falls slightly open, involuntary in his surprise, and Dean tracks the movement, lets himself. Watches as Cas swallows hard.

Dean changes his mind at the last moment and backs Cas up against the wall instead of sitting him down on the bed. He’s not even really sure why - it just seems easier like that. Less real. A tiny pathetic part of him knows it’s last that few moments longer if Cas isn’t as comfortable. He looks away from Cas’ eyes, can’t stare into that deep blue abyss if he’s going to do this - like this. Cas lets him. Not that he could really stop him anymore. He’s smaller, and human, and fragile in a way such strong things should never be. Like flash frozen glass.

The whiskey is hitting his bloodstream now. He can feel it. Light headed, like bleeding out. Like he’s losing part of himself, spilling everything he has into this moment and not quite thinking right. He almost fumbles when he gets a hand on Cas’ belt buckle but he pushes though. Keeps his eyes on what he’s doing until it hits him and he realises what he’s doing and what he’s going to see, going to know. He stops. Held in place and more still than demon power has ever held him.

“Dean?” Cas’ voice cuts into his revery of fear. Confused? Scared? Dean doesn’t even know anymore. He makes the mistake of looking up again and catching Cas’ eye. He gets lost like he always does, tangled up in the confusion and desire. And the fear. God, the fear. He’s meant to be brave, he’s meant to be a hunter, Constantine called him a hero once even if it was said as an insult. But he’s not. He’s terrified. Of himself, of Cas, of the future and the past, of loss and longing and… everything. And now Cas is looking back at him like he knows. Like he understands. Like he wants it anyway. His pupils are wide and his cheeks are flushed and his breath is on the verge of panted. And god damn it he’s beautiful.

Dean closes his eyes, he can do this by hand, by touch, be sense memory. He gets the belt open, button, zip. He buries his face in the curve of Castiel’s neck and breaths deep. It isn’t quite right, he’s human and warm. Sweat and soap and the ointment Dean put on his cuts and bruises after the fight. Too human. There’s none of the soft ozone and sharp sugar smells that he’s always associated with angels and Cas in particular. It was meant to be calming but he just feels more adrift on the reality of it all. He feels something catch in his throat. Something a little like a sob, and a little like a laugh. And nothing like either.

~*O*~

Cas’ didn’t really expect this. Now he’s confronted with it, he isn’t sure what he expected but it wasn’t this. He didn’t expect Dean to actually touch him. His breath quickens, comes to life within him as Dean seeks out contact and presses in close. He wasn’t sure he could get Dean to talk to him about all the affection, attention, and attraction between them. Wasn’t even sure he could get Dean to talk about the most basic and physical aspects of human loves and lusts. Maybe he still won’t? Maybe Cas missed a step? Maybe he’s falling all over again into a pit of his own making. His body cries out that it’s worth it. Pushed him to jump on in. He just hopes he doesn’t drag Dean down with him.

Dean has his face turned down and Cas wants to make him look up. Wants to look in his eyes and see if this at last will get him closer to Dean’s soul. But he can feel Dean’s breath on his skin, subtle on his throat. Dean has one hand on Cas’ belt and the other supporting his weight against the wall. It seems for a moment like he is penning Cas in. Making sure he can’t run away. As if there’s a chance Cas would.

His penis is hard and aching like a bruise, red and tender like one too. It keeps catching on his awareness - his whole world narrowed down to six inches of skin and blood and Dean. But when Dean’s hand finds his flesh it feels like relief, like freedom, and deep soaring bliss. Like wings catching on wind, a beautiful kind of tension that begs for repetition. Like cool grace on burned skin. Cas hears his own voice, hears himself whimper into it. Keeps forgetting to breath again. Gasping when his all too human body demands air again.

“Dean” he says again, it sounds like awe because it is. He is utterly in awe of this moment and that sensation. Dean is biting into his lip so hard that Cas is scared he’ll bleed.

~*O*~

Dean knows if he kisses the angel he won’t be able to stop, not now, not tonight, not ever. He’s already got one leg over a line he swore he’d never touch but- a kiss would be too far and too real. They’re so close they’re breathing the same humid air, fighting for the same oxygen through already over eager lungs. Panting and hot and wet and so damn close…

He makes the mistake of opening his eyes and looking up again. “Close your eyes, Cas,” He says. “Focus on feeling it,” he begs. Don’t focus on me, he thinks it like prayer even though Cas can’t hear.

He’s barely started and he’s already getting needy for more. Trailed his fingers against burning hard skin, felt the edges of it. He ignores the vicious tug of lust in his chest.

It’s easier once Cas closes his eyes but not much. The former-angel leans his head against the yellowed wallpaper. Seems to relax into it a bit. Dean has a stupid frantic moment where he misses the damn trenchcoat.

He’s got his free hand a little too high, flat to the wall. Ostensibly supporting his weight but really it’s because he wants to touch, wants his hands in Cas’ hair, on his face, touch his skin like it means something. Wants to dig in and hold on and never let go. So he keeps his palm to the wall where it can’t encroach.

“Gimme your hand,” Dean manages to say. Finds breath somewhere inside him. Some reserve of will he didn’t know he had.

Cas starts to open his eyes again, watching. And Dean can’t blame him for that one - wasn’t that the whole point of this. Dean guides Cas’ palm to the angel’s hot little cock. Wraps the fingers around it too, just shy of too tight. He guides the movement next. Slow and smooth to start. He tries and fails at not thinking about how damn good that must feel.

He hears the broken gasping sound before he realizes it’s coming from him. He tries to swallow it back along with every twisted desperate little thing that inspired it.

~*O*~

Something about the noise Dean makes when they both have their hands on Cas’ penis makes him tense up all over, makes his body twitch and react without permission. His hips twitch up unbidden into their combined grasp.

Dean’s eyes are closed and face turned away again. But Cas can feel the long solid line of Dean’s thigh pressed to the outer side of his own, and at the very edge of his awareness through several layers of fabric he can feel Dean’s arousal responding to Cas’, like an answer to a puzzle. Or a prayer.

“Dean,” Cas attempts for a third time. He has to ask now because he is becoming distracted, flushed and warm with anticipation. “Does this mea-”

“No,” Dean cuts him off, sharp in a way that begs no argument despite the breathlessness of his voice. “It doesn’t _mean_ anything, Cas. Just, just relax… just shut up and relax.”

He tries to relax, he really does but it is challenging when his body is so taught and alive. He remembers Dean’s earlier words, tries not to remember April’s, and closes his eyes again. Focus on how it _feels_. Yet for some reason the rough caught edge of Dean’s voice when he spoke is what he actually focuses on. That and the almost gentle slide of flesh on flesh. The way each inching movement extracts coils of warm pleasure from him. Sates a hunger he hadn’t really understood before it was met.

Cas has never felt anything so deeply demanding yet conversely satisfying in his existence. He’s never felt anything so physical either. So all encompassing. Emmanuel hadn’t been human with Daphne even if he didn’t know it. And she had never been very interested in sex anyway. She had told him to ‘get it elsewhere’ if he needed it. He hadn’t. That had been the end of that. Then April… well it isn’t really comparable. He’s not sure anything is-

Dean’s breathing is fast and heated near Cas’ skin. And Cas can smell the leather, herb, after-shave, and gun oil scent of him - aware of it in a way that he hadn’t been as an angel. Almost overwhelmed by it. Every scratching touch of skin and moist sweep of breath makes him want more anyway. He whimpers on his exhale.

“Feels good doesn’t it?” Dean asks him.

All Cas can do is nod his pure and complete agreement with that wholehearted understatement. Dean chuckles against Cas’ skin and that makes him even hotter, makes his skin burn with it. Makes his heart clench too - so tight it almost hurts but somehow feels good instead.

“Hey, look at me a second?” Dean says. He stops, pins Cas’ hand still. Cas outright whines but doesn’t care.

Castiel opens his eyes. Intends to glare at Dean for the interruption but stops at the sight of him. Skin pink and freckles stark against the blush. His pupils are so wide that the green of his iris is almost fully obscured. And the way he is looking at Cas... Really looking - like it is Dean who wants to look at Cas’ soul (maybe trying to see if he has one). Cas finally understands why humans say a sight can be breathtaking - because it is. It steals his breath and his attention. Cas wants something. He isn’t sure what it is but it makes him salivate. It causes something close to pain. It is just a bone deep, marrow bled longing for… more. More of something he can’t name. More contact. More bliss. More Dean.

“See this?” Dean asks, he holds up a little blue sachette that he seems to have pulled out of one of his pockets. He brings it to his mouth and tears the packet open with his teeth.

That simple act brings up the hungry, thirsty, wanting pain in Cas’ skin again. Cas can’t keep his eyes off the movement of Dean’s lips and tongue. He thinks maybe he wants them on himself instead of the sachette. Dean draws their hands away from Cas’ penis, he’s still watching Cas, possibly watching his reactions. Dean squeezes cold gel out of the packet onto Cas’ palm.

“Lube,” Dean says, and his voice is still rough and wispy at the edges in a way Cas has previously only ever heard through half-dreamt prayer, but it is a proximation of what Cas has come to think of his expositional tone. It is the voice he uses when he is explaining something, usually something important to him such as proper car or gun maintenance, why ‘angels are dicks’ or the best varieties of pie. So Cas tries to pay attention. It is confoundingly difficult when Dean is using his thumb to slide across Cas’ palm. Warming the gel with the motion.

“You’re gonna need it,” Dean continues. “You can use like, lotion or whatever when you’re-” a confused second of silence “...but this is better, okay?”

Cas nods again still not trusting his voice. He hears the change mid-sentence but can’t really guess what Dean was originally planning to say or why he changed his mind at the last moment. But he isn’t left to wonder long. Dean guides his now slippery hand back to his phallus, guides his hand more firm this time, fingers tight. The first slide is some kind of miracle. It has to be. Cas feels all his breath leave him in a sudden heady gasp.

“Eyes, Cas,” Dean says. He sounds like he’s falling apart and for a moment Cas is concerned but then Dean moves. It is a full body roll of warm motion. Dean pressing into him in time with their recombined hands, in time with that sweet sensation. His human mind can’t hold on to the concern. All he can think and feel is wet friction and a powerful drive to keep moving, keep seeking the shuddering burning pleasure. He gives in. Closes his eyes and just feels it. Feels his body, and Dean’s, and the heat around them and inside him. He lets his body know this, just like original sin from the fruit in Eden, Cas falls yet again into Dean’s hands.

~*O*~

Dean can’t help it. He can’t hold back, not completely. The way Cas moves. The way he breathes, the damn sounds he makes. It is everything and nothing like he imagined. Cas just abandons himself to it. Like it is the first, last, and only thing he wants. Cas bucks into his own hand, with Dean guiding. He can tell Cas is close, already. And well, if he didn’t know how to jerk off then of course it wasn’t gonna take long - even backed up to the wall and standing.

He could stop now. Dean could let go and Cas’ body would know what to do. But he doesn’t fucking want to. He knows that was never really about Cas. If it was he would have just dug out his junky old laptop, put on some basic one-guy porno and left Cas to it. There’s enough of it out there. But he wanted this. Wanted to see. Wanted to know even if it’s only this close. Even if it is only almost.

In what feels like both seconds and hours of bitter sweet touch and friction and frantic whimpered sounds from his former-angel, Cas comes. Dean feels it. Feels Cas’ whole body shudder into it. Feels the tension snap taught then all the way back. And most of all he feels the wet heat of it. Cas just collapses into it and Dean has to catch him, just stops himself from getting cum on Cas’ shirt when he does it too.

God, Dean wants to kiss him. Wants to taste the red flush under his skin. Wants to dig in hard and rough and real and get himself off too. With Cas right up against him. Wants it so bad he thinks about doing it. But if he starts he’ll never, ever stop. And he would give just about anything to have this, to have this for real. But he wouldn’t give Sam. He can’t take Cas back with him. He can’t. And if he lets himself do anything else he won’t be able to let go. And it’ll tear them both apart even more than Dean has already shredded whatever it is they had.

So Dean pulls back. Lets Cas take his own weight and lean back on the wall.

“There, better?” Dean says. He knows he’s trying to distract himself from the tight knot in his stomach and the similarly harmful tension in his cock. Dean realises it was the wrong thing when Cas looks up at him with white bright awe. Dean looks away. He hates that look on a good day - he’s never deserved it but he really doesn’t deserve it tonight.

“Thank you?” Cas half breathes the words but Dean hears them. And he hears the confused and cutting edge of a question in them too. He ignores it.

“Go clean up,” Dean says with a jerky nod toward the bathroom. He can’t meet Cas’ eyes yet. He backs off and wipes his own hands on one of the old rags he was using on his guns. Throws it out even though it’s had worse on it. Doesn’t want the reminder of how Cas’ cock feels in his hands.

“Dean?” Cas asks, clearer this time. He’s getting his wits back.

“I said go clean up,” Dean growls back. Then because he’s not a total asshole, “you got something to sleep in?”

There’s a long pause, and if Dean turned he’s pretty sure he would have seen Cas shake his head. But Dean doesn’t turn so Cas gives a spoken answer as well, “not really.”

“Here,” Dean pulls an old Led Zep tee-shirt out of his bag, and after a moment of hotly confused hesitation a pair of old boxers he only ever sleeps in anyway. They’re clean at least.

Cas comes over and takes the clothes from Dean. He doesn’t say anything this time but he does try to catch Dean’s eye. Dean grabs the bottle of whiskey instead of looking back. Cas finally gets the message, game over. The former-angel finally goes to shower and leaves Dean alone. The whiskey doesn’t burn as bad on the way down this time. Maybe it’s because his chest is already burning.

~*O*~

When Castiel gets out of the shower Dean is still fully dressed, despite having showered himself hours earlier. Cas narrows his eyes in suspicion.

Dean stops when he sees him. Sudden and awkward. Looks him over almost anxiously.

“You don’t approve?” Cas asks, mostly mocking. He holds his arms at his sides to display his apparent sleeping attire.

“That ain’t the problem,” Dean says with a trace of that same low gruffness from earlier. When Dean had his hands on Cas’ body.

Cas makes his way across the room without avoiding Dean but without forcing himself close either. He sits carefully on the edge of the bed before he looks up at Dean again. He’s still watching but also won’t meet Cas’ eyes. It is very confusing.

“I feel as if I ought to reciprocate?” Cas says tentatively but he smiles too. He _wants_ to reciprocate. Feels it with the same confusing, near physical heat that made him aroused in the first place. But he suspects phrasing that way won’t help.

“You don’t gotta do anything, Cas,” and at least Dean’s tone is kinder now. Dean finally looks back, finally looks Cas in the eye, “It didn’t mean anything, alright? I’m not that kind of guy. I’m not ever going to be that kind of guy.”

He means it. It is hard to tell without his grace, without access to Dean’s soul. But he seems so serious. So firm. Slightly self-loathing. Maybe even a little bit angry at Cas himself. It makes Cas feel like another part of him has been ripped out - and that doesn't make sense. He knows what Dean is like with sexual intimacy - it isn’t intimacy to Dean. What did he expect?

At some point his eyes have slipped off Dean’s face and he is looking at the gruesomely floral carpet. When he looks back up Dean is frowning.

“I’m sleeping in the car,” Dean says with finality. Snatches his keys form the bench and makes for the door. “Just forget it ever happened, Cas. We’ll both be better off.”

The door slams behind him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I has a tumblr - <http://kittyaugust.tumblr.com/>. I take a lot of prompts and I don't bite.
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> * * *
> 
> Friendly reminder: Comments and kudos are the currency of fandom. Let me know what you thought and you'll make my day.


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